Chapter 1: Zhuoyu

Floating Jade Mountain.

The foremost sect of the Three Realms comprised three peaks, their blessed spiritual veins converging at the center. Outside the sect walls, the spring chill still bit, but on Deer Jade Terrace the peach blossoms were already in full bloom, drifting over jade-green ripples.

The once-every-three-years sect Grand Tournament had just drawn to a close. Amid the falling petals, disciples clustered in little groups, chattering around the demon in the iron cage at the center.

“…That’s a Tiger Demon, isn’t it? With baleful aura that heavy, it has definitely eaten people before.”

“Senior Brother He really is impressive.”

He Xing wore a crimson hunting robe patterned with flames, the soft-sword-like artifact “Fire Shed” coiled at his waist. Arrogant and carefree, he snorted with laughter at the murmurs around him. “Well then, junior brothers, tell me—who is the most gifted in all of Floating Jade Mountain?”

The junior brothers hurried to flatter him. “Senior Brother He, you captured a demon of this size—the championship is yours beyond question! Of course the most gifted is Little Senior Brother Lin!”

He Xing: “…”

He Xing fumed, “Lin Zhuoyu didn’t even dare enter the Grand Tournament! He’d cry like a lamb at the sight of a Great Demon! How is he better than me in any way?!”

The junior brothers earnestly counted off on their fingers: Little Senior Brother Lin had superior talent, higher cultivation, better looks, a better temper—on and on, too many to count.

He Xing: “…”

Shouldn’t have asked.

He Xing was rolling his eyes in fury when a flash of green caught the corner of his vision, riding a sword in from the horizon, arriving in an instant.

—Only one person in Floating Jade Mountain could fly on a sword: Lin Zhuoyu.

The three peaks had five inner sect disciples in all, and Lin Zhuoyu ranked last among them, so the outer disciples called him Little Senior Brother.

Lin Zhuoyu had come from Chaoping Marsh. As a child, his family had been slaughtered by a Great Demon—his parents and elder brother had all perished.

Floating Jade Mountain and Chaoping Marsh had long been on good terms, and Daoist Lord Tongxu had made an exception to take him as a closed-door disciple, teaching him personally—even breaking precedent to permit Lin Zhuoyu sword flight over Floating Jade Mountain. One can imagine how deeply he doted on the boy.

He Xing brushed the others aside and strode forward. “Well, well. Isn’t this the Lin ‘Little Senior Brother’ who didn’t even dare enter the Grand Tournament? What, heard your senior brother hunted down a Tiger Demon and came specially to pay your respects?”

Lin Zhuoyu alighted gracefully, kicking up the petals beneath his feet, peach-blossom eyes glancing at him without a word.

Appreciation of beauty is universal—even facing this face day after day, He Xing still found his attention wandering now and then. He coughed drily and asked with a straight face, “Why so quiet? Cat got your tongue?”

Lin Zhuoyu finally spoke. “Shizun told me not to talk to idiots.”

He Xing: “…”

Lin Zhuoyu walked over to the cage, examining it as he spoke. “This Tiger Demon has binding sigils on it—blood-activated at three points, east, west, and north, with cinnabar covering the south… Oh. These are the Demon Suppression Bureau’s demon-capturing sigils. Without these sigils, this Tiger Demon could knock you half dead with one swipe, pin you down by the leg and eat you from the head, bite off half your skull—crunch, crunch—then one more bite to slit you belly to throat…”

He Xing: “?”

The disciples nearby looked about to cry. “Little Senior Brother, stop! We haven’t eaten yet today!”

“Oh.” Lin Zhuoyu mercifully stopped. He raised a hand and pointed at two disciples. “This Tiger Demon is breaking through the Demon Suppression Bureau’s Restriction. This iron cage won’t hold it. Lock it in the dungeon first and wait for the Bureau’s people to arrive.”

“Yes, sir.”

He Xing, having failed to impress and been mocked besides, snapped, “If I could capture it, I have the means to subdue it. You couldn’t even enter the demon-hunting tournament—who are you to talk big?”

Lin Zhuoyu gave a scoffing laugh. “I simply disdained to enter. If you lost to me again, wouldn’t you hide in your room bawling like a water buffalo, like three years ago?”

He Xing’s face flushed red. “We agreed never to bring that up again!”

Lin Zhuoyu was imitating his water-buffalo bawl when a trembling voice came from a disciple nearby.

“Senior Brother…”

“Little Senior Brother!”

He Xing turned around impatiently. “What—”

The words died in his throat. The Tiger Demon, which had lain drugged for half a day, had at some point broken through the Restriction inside its body and was slowly rising to its feet, baleful eyes fixed dead on He Xing, foul saliva dripping from its fangs.

He Xing froze, then shouted, “Everyone scatter!”

The Tiger Demon moved too fast. It suddenly raised its claws and smashed the cage apart in a single blow, golden sigils scattering.

The disciples fled in every direction.

He Xing summoned his artifact, the Fire Shed, and charged forward with a dark face, searing flames wreathing the sharp soft sword as it slashed straight for the Tiger Demon’s neck.

Clang—!

The color drained from He Xing’s face in an instant.

The blade had been blocked?!

Before he could retreat, the Tiger Demon’s claw—the one that could crush a profound-iron cage—slammed mercilessly toward his waist. If it landed, he would die on the spot.

At this critical moment, Lin Zhuoyu’s voice rang out: “Eldest Senior Brother!”

The next instant, a spirit sword came hurtling through the air, its tassel trailing a dragon-like ribbon of water, slicing irresistibly toward the Tiger Demon’s claw.

Boom.

Blood surged out at once, drenching He Xing.

The Tiger Demon shrieked, clutching its severed arm as it staggered back.

Still shaken, He Xing looked up blankly.

Lin Zhuoyu stood tall as a crane, peach petals drifting down around him. He raised a hand to catch the resplendent spirit sword, and as he turned slightly, three flamboyant characters could be glimpsed on the blade’s inscription—

“Eldest Senior Brother.”

He Xing: “…”

Lin Zhuoyu had cleanly severed one of the Tiger Demon’s claws, and the flowing water of the sword tassel did not diminish—in an instant it wove itself into a cage that contracted toward the center, trapping the Tiger Demon’s massive body within the water.

That water artifact was the Boundless Water, conjured by Daoist Lord Tongxu from the waters of an entire drained river.

No matter how vast the Tiger Demon’s cultivation, it could not breathe underwater. It soon suffocated and sank to the bottom, motionless.

Everyone was dumbstruck.

Lin Zhuoyu studied under Daoist Lord Tongxu with extraordinary talent—but Daoist Lord Tongxu cherished his friend’s son deeply.

Three years ago, Lin Zhuoyu had entered the Grand Tournament and come away with a single scratch on his shoulder. This year, Daoist Lord Tongxu refused to let him take any risks at all, rarely letting him even leave the sect of Floating Jade Mountain; on the rare occasions he did go out, the inner sect disciples surrounded him front and back.

Floating Jade Mountain’s disciples knew only that Little Senior Brother Lin had formed his core at eighteen, his talent surpassing even Senior Brother Yan Su’s—but they had never once seen him fight.

He Xing stared blankly at the young man beneath the peach blossoms, momentarily at a loss for how to react.

Lin Zhuoyu had just pulled off an enormous flex. Seeing jaws dropped all over the ground and eyes full of reverence, he was inwardly ecstatic while outwardly composed.

He Xing parted his lips slightly.

Lin Zhuoyu braced for praise.

He Xing said, half-dead, “I knew you had no good intentions when you named your spirit sword that.”

Lin Zhuoyu: “…”

Lin Zhuoyu kicked him indignantly. “I should have just let that Tiger Demon eat you in three bites—one for the neck first…”

He Xing only had a temper; he knew what mattered. Climbing to his feet and giving himself a long mental pep talk, he finally said, stiff and awkward, “So, um. Thanks.”

Lin Zhuoyu cupped a hand by his ear, pretending not to hear. “You—said—what?”

He Xing drew breath into his dantian and bellowed, “I said, thank you, Lin! Little! Senior! Brother! Your life-saving grace cannot be repaid—I have no choice but to offer! My! Self! In! Marriage!”

Lin Zhuoyu was nearly deafened by the roar. Satisfied with his thanks, he turned to head out of the sect.

He Xing hurriedly called after him. “Where are you going?”

“To the sect gate to wait for Eldest Senior Brother.”

“Senior Brother Yan is coming back?”

“No.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

Lin Zhuoyu said glumly, “I had a dream last night. I dreamed of Eldest Senior Brother…”

An inexplicable sourness rose in He Xing. “Oh? What did you dream…”

A trace of sorrow dotted Lin Zhuoyu’s brow. “I dreamed there were villains in the Demon Suppression Bureau who poisoned Eldest Senior Brother and destroyed his cultivation, and then a Great Demon struck him half dead with one palm and ate his head in one bite—crunch, crunch—then one more bite to slit him belly to throat…”

He Xing: “…”

Can’t you wish Eldest Senior Brother anything better?

But hearing that Eldest Senior Brother also got eaten in three bites, he wasn’t sour anymore.

His gaze flicked once over Lin Zhuoyu’s face and quickly looked away, asking as casually as he could manage, “Why is it ‘Eldest Senior Brother’ with every other breath? You dream of what you think of by day. So worried about him—what are you two, planning to become Dao Companions?”

Lin Zhuoyu: “Nope.”

He Xing relaxed in relief.

But once Lin Zhuoyu started on Yan Su, he couldn’t help talking on and on. “…We grew up together, inseparable. Naturally, we are closer than Dao Companions.”

He Xing said meaningfully, “Oh. Anyone who didn’t know better would think the two of you had already secretly pledged yourselves for life.”

Lin Zhuoyu rebuked him, “Filthy!”

With that he turned to go.

He Xing called after him again.

Lin Zhuoyu was growing impatient, snapping, “Spit it out!”

He Xing cleared his throat again, steeling himself. “Ahem. It’s nothing much, just—recently my father wanted to find me a Dao Companion for dual cultivation.”

Lin Zhuoyu nodded. “Mm. And?”

He Xing looked at the sky, the ground, the peach blossoms, mumbling, “Wh-what about you? Hasn’t Daoist Lord Tongxu told you to find a Dao Companion for dual cultivation? Cultivating with secret arts doubles the results for half the effort.”

“Nope.” Lin Zhuoyu had no idea what the man was rambling about, but answered patiently anyway. “Shizun never meddles in that sort of thing for me.”

He Xing asked, feigning indifference, “Just asking casually. Hypothetically, say, what if—one day the Three Realms were destroyed and only the two of us survived by luck—would you consider becoming Dao Companions with me?”

Lin Zhuoyu answered with perfect crispness. “No!”

He Xing panicked. “Why not?!”

Lin Zhuoyu looked at him suspiciously. “A Dao Companion union is meant to be the joining of yin and yang. We are both men—what ‘why not’ is there?”

He Xing laughed in exasperation. “The Three Realms have been destroyed, and you’re still worried about propriety?”

“The Three Realms have been destroyed, and your mind is still on Dao Companion business?”

He Xing: “…”

Lin Zhuoyu was slow on the uptake. Only now did something feel off. Knowing nothing whatsoever of tact, he asked directly, “You like me?”

He Xing feigned composure. “And if I said I do?”

Lin Zhuoyu was blunt in return. “I don’t like men. Stop appearing in front of me from now on.”

He Xing’s face paled for an instant, then he recovered, rolled his eyes, and swallowed down the water-buffalo tears.

“You’re such a prized delicacy, are you—me, like you? How many beatings have I taken because of you since we were children? I’d have to be suffering some grave masochistic illness to like you!”

Just as Lin Zhuoyu was about to curse him for talking nonsense again, he suddenly said, “Eldest Senior Brother?!”

He Xing: “Stop trying to scare me with that broken sword of yours. Even if Eldest Senior Brother really did come…”

He Xing turned around—and dropped straight to his knees with a thud.

“Eldest Senior Brother!”

The surroundings fell instantly silent.

Yan Su, first disciple of Floating Jade Mountain, had arrived at some unknown point. He always wore plain white robes; cultivating a special heart technique, his body seemed wreathed in frosty mist, every step treading across snow-white cold air.

He was white from head to toe—except for the sword at his waist, which carried an unmistakable, eerie killing intent.

That was baleful aura condensed from slaughtering countless demons and evils.

The disciples’ faces went white, and they instinctively backed away, keeping far from him.

Lin Zhuoyu had not expected Yan Su to actually return. Delighted, he ran forward in quick steps. “Eldest Senior Brother!”

The spirit sword surged out of its sheath, trying to reach its master, and was brushed away.

Lin Zhuoyu stopped familiarly in front of Yan Su. “We were just talking about you, Senior Brother. When did you arrive? Why didn’t you tell me beforehand?”

Yan Su glanced once at He Xing, who was quietly preparing to crawl away, and said coldly, “The day the Three Realms are destroyed.”

“What?”

“The day He Xing becomes your Dao Companion.”